Synopsis

This beast has a stone in its eye, also called an Yena, which is believed to make a person able to foresee the future if he keeps it under his tongue. It is true that if an Yena walks round an animal three times, the animal cannot move. For this reason they affirm that it has some sort of magic skill about it. (Translated from Latin, from the twelfth century Bestiary in the University of Cambridge Library. ) Perhaps it is not merely fortuitous that of all the African animals, the ancients should have selected the hyaena as a vehicle for magical powers. Of course, there are solid scientific explanations for this; the animals' nocturnal habits around human habitation, the consumption of people's mortal remains, the spectacular hermaphroditic appearance, the uncanny similarity between the calls of a spotted hyaena and the utterances of deranged humanity. But apart from all rational explanations for the strange hold of the animal over people, there is a magic about hyaenas which can only be understood by those who have watched them for some time.

There is a now growing band of us, who came to the African bush with all our prejudices, with all that 'common knowledge' about hyaenas which proved so totally wrong, and who just fell for the spell of animals which were so totally different.

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